The present invention relates to a doughnut like a dumpling covered with sesame seeds excellent in storage stability or keeping quality, dough used for the preparation of the doughnut and a method for the preparation of the doughnut.
The dumpling covered with sesame seeds well known as a dessert in the Chinese restaurant is prepared from refined rice flour as a raw material and mouth feeling like a rice cake (the sticky and resilient feeling) thereof observed when it is practically eaten would be the reason why it has widely been favored. However, the dumpling covered with sesame seeds is a food, which should be eaten immediately after it is prepared or after the deep-frying operation and it suffers from a problem such that if it is stored over one to two days, it looses the sticky and resilient feelings, upon eating, peculiar thereto.
On the other hand, the doughnut as a typical deep-fried food includes one called the yeast doughnut prepared by adding yeast to dough to thus ferment the dough, forming it into a desired shape and then frying the shaped dough and one called the cake doughnut obtained by forming baking powder-containing dough into a desired shape and then frying the shaped dough as well as one free of any yeast and/or baking powder such as CHURROS. In other words, there have been known various kinds of doughnuts, while taking into consideration the shapes thereof. However, all of these foods are prepared using wheat flour as a principal raw material and can provide crispy feeling upon eating, which is quite different from the sticky and resilient feeling of, for instance, a dumpling covered with sesame seeds.
Japanese Un-Examined Patent Publication Hei 10-313787 discloses a rice-cake-like fried food having an oil-absorption rate, as determined after frying, ranging from 1 to 10% and prepared from tapioca starch and a processed product thereof as principal ingredients, although it would not be clear whether the rice-cake-like fried food is a doughnut or not. In this case, the fried food is not only literally a rice-cake-like food rather than a doughnut because it is called an ISOBEYAKI-like food or a food like a rice-cake stuffed with sweetened bean jam, but also its sticky and resilient feelings upon eating last even on the day subsequent to the preparation thereof. However, it can maintain its taste and texture only for such a short period of time and therefore, the food is not suitable for the production on a large scale.
Moreover, Japanese Un-Examined Patent Publication Hei 10-304815 discloses a method for preparing a ball-like cake doughnut, which comprises the steps of forming, into a ring-like shape, dough containing 100 parts by weight of wheat flour and 3 to 20 parts by weight of cross-linked starch and then deep-frying the shaped dough pieces in heated oil and this patent states that ball-like cake doughnuts can thus stably be prepared in a high yield, but this patent literature does not particularly intend to improve the taste and texture of the food.
As has been described above, there has not yet been known any investigation of a food having a doughnut-like appearance, sticky and resilient feelings upon eating like a dumpling covered with sesame seeds and it is excellent in stability in the mouth feeling, taste and texture with the elapse of time.